TY - JOUR
AU - Blau,Francine D.
AU - Kahn,Lawrence M.
TI - Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap
JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL - No. 8200
PY - 2001
Y2 - April 2001
DO - 10.3386/w8200
UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8200
L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8200.pdf
N1 - Author contact info:
Francine D. Blau
ILR School
Cornell University
268 Ives Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853-3901
Tel: 607/255-4381
Fax: 607/255-4496
E-Mail: fdb4@cornell.edu
Lawrence Kahn
ILR School
Cornell University
258 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
Tel: 607-255-0510
Fax: 607-255-4496
E-Mail: lmk12@cornell.edu
AB - This paper tests the hypotheses that overall wage compression and low female supply relative to demand reduce a country's gender pay gap. Using micro-data for 22 countries over the 1985-94 period, we find that more compressed male wage structures and lower female net supply are both associated with a lower gender pay gap. Since it is likely that labor market institutions are responsible for an important portion of international differences in wage inequality, the inverse relationship between the gender pay gap and male wage inequality suggests that wage-setting mechanisms, such as encompassing collective bargaining agreements, that provide for relatively high wage floors raise the relative pay of women, who tend to be at the bottom of the wage distribution. Consistent with this view, we find that the extent of collective bargaining coverage in each country is significantly negatively associated with its gender pay gap. Moreover, the effect of pay structures on the gender pay gap is quantitatively very important: a large part of the difference in the gender differential between high gap and low gap countries is explained by the differences across these countries in overall wage structure, with another potentially important segment due to differences in female net supply.
ER -